First "professional" jigs

Because this looked like a lot of busy work, my first thought was to have the chassis jigs built by a local machine shop. So I bought the metal and had it sent directly to the machine shop and went over the drawings with them. They kept asking me how big various things were, when the dimensions were clearly right there on the drawing. Then it became clear they didn’t know how to deal with dimensions in meters. They asked me how to convert a dimension from meters to centimeters. “You mean like move the decimal point two places to the right?”, I’m thinking… This was not looking promising. Eventually I went home and tried to come up with a set of orthographic-projection drawings, with hidden lines removed, that they couldn’t possibly misinterpret. I soon gave up. When I went to pick up the first two jigs the next day, the list of errors was long and creative. Mounting footprint on one reversed, vertical tube holders cut too shallow and not in line, overall height incorrect, horizontal alignment out of spec, etc., etc.

Sigh. I called a local aerospace-engineer type that I know and asked him if he knew a good machinist, and he directed me to a local guy who I visited the next day. We met a couple of times and he is indeed capable of handling the project; in fact, I decided it’s really below his capabilities and ended up building the jigs myself, saving him for building actual car parts.

Lots of cut pieces waiting for welding, drilling, & milling

I needed a good, strong right angle to hold the pieces in place while welding. The bandsaw table served perfectly.

Welding the angles onto the uprights. Chassis table is very useful here.

Drilling the chassis table crossmembers on the milling machine.

First trial fitting of the chassis jigs onto the chassis table. Top rail guides not yet cut; other tube guides not yet in place.

Welding tube guides for vertical tubes. Sample tube keeps things in alignment, along with very careful tack welding.

Almost-finished complete set of chassis jigs

Chassis table crossmembers were drilled for pins to hold front subframe during welding.

3/8" bolts should be tight. But not this tight.